Bp Texas City Explosion Preface This literary writing is about the British Petroleum Texas City Explosion that

oc curred on March 23, 2005 in Texas City, Texas. A Gasoline refinery was in the pr ocess of an especially dangerous procedure: re-starting a unit that had been dow n for repairs. Fifteen workers within fifty yards of the blast were returning fr om lunch after celebrating one hundred days of no accidents, returning to work a nd Unaware that eleven of the group would die shortly in one instant, from a she er shock wave with a tremendous blunt force that would shatter their bones compl etely. Welding inspector Arthur Ramos noticed a terrible malfunction nearby. An d immediately called a co-worker on his phone leaving a message stating (This is Art Critical, Critical) the last words he ever spoke. I Enrique Gonzales heard this message on Art s telephone, which was found in the debris after the tragedy a nd returned to his wife. It was a shocking, large vapor cloud the size of a foot ball field Arturo had seen. Deep inside the blast proof control room engineers quietly proceeded to restart the refinery. With out warning fuel from a blowdown stack erupted like a volcano and created a large vapor cloud. A truck parked nearby with the engin e running malfunction because of the vapors in the air and backfired, igniting t he cloud of dangerous gas. The hydrocarbon isomerisation Unit., used to produce high octane fuel wa s the source of the explosion. The existing safety equipment did not work and th e control room operators were not aware of the boiling fuel about to explode and instantly kill eleven construction workers employed by a company contracted by Jacobs Engineering. My story comes from a forklift driver who was working very near the expl osion. His wife Sandra Ibarra was also there, she was working in the Jacobs work trailer 50 yards from the center of the blast. Joe s height sitting on the forkli ft tractor was his a blessing for life to continue because the shockwave travele d low to the ground at speed of sound. Sandra survived the blast because she sto od behind a metal cabinet in the work trailer. She would lay in critical conditi on for weeks at a Galveston hospital her body with a head fracture, broken neck, broken ribs, burned lungs and numerous other internal wounds totally crippled b y the blast. A hero was born that unforgettable day. Fearless and no concern for his own safety, or burning alive from the fires that raged before his eyes. He instinctively knocked fire balls out of the sky with his arms, and moved burning vehicles from the area before they exploded. Joe Ibarra gave me that testimony in tears at the Galveston hospital, as my mother in-law and wife visited him to pray for his wife. Five years and after the state of Texas fined and imposed modifications and chan ges to the refinery, BP continues to be negligent when it comes to safety within their refineries, and most of there other endeavors as well. For example the ac cident in the Gulf Coast of Mexico off shore oil well, that leaked thousands of barrels of oil, killed eleven oil workers. British Petroleum should be reprimand ed, because they were not willing to make changes ordered by the courts. I have access to 1000's of public documents from the United States Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board, and will release all this information in my book BP Texas City Explosion written by Enrique Cabecera Gonzales. Again BP is unwilling to make expensive modifications to its many indust ries, this multi-billion dollar company destroyed the Gulf of Mexico s. ecological , economic and environmental beauty. I'm obligated to tell the public that many problems existed. In the investigation that followed for example, some monitorin g stations within the control room were not being used and not optimizing the co ntrol room s capability to detect danger and alarm personal. What baffled survivors of the victims, and the public is that engineers did not evacuate all personal from the area before restarting the newly refurbis hed refinery? It is unjustifiable to believe that the construction workers were

not informed that the plant was being refueled and quietly began the process. Th ere is a big chance that charges may be filed against BP for its negligence. The workers were doomed the instant the refueling process began. Literary work copyright pending # 1-693297794